Where Are
We Living ? Game of democracy in Romania is a kind of an easy one. It is a little bit more difficult at first, when certain laws must be respected. Even in our country we have the four basic elements without which democracy cannot function: the executive, the legislative, the judicial and the people. It’s important to know how this game is being performed takes place. First of all we will talk about the four basic elements and how they work in our country. Parliament is the supreme representative organ of the Romanian people and the unique legislative authority of the country. It is made of the Deputies’ Room and the Senate. They are chosen for a period of four years and they start working in periods of three months the most, since the mandate expires or since the Parliament dissolves. The Parliament adopts laws, decisions and motions in the presence of the majority. The adopted laws are sent to the President to be accepted. The President of Romania represents the state and is the guarantee of national independence, unity and territorial integrity of the country. He watches for the Constitution to be respected controls and the good working of the public authorities’ .In this purpose the President exercises the mediating function between the state’s powers, like between the state and the society. The President is chosen for a period of five years and exercises the mandate from the deposal of the statement. He signs international treats in the name of Romania, negotiated by the Government and sent them to the Parliament ratification. The President assigns a candidate for the prime-minister function and names the Government on the base of the trusting vote granted by the Parliament. The Government assures the realization of the internal and external politics of the country and exercises the general leadership of the public administration. The Government and the other organs of the public administration, under the Parliament’s control of the activity, are obliged to present information and documents required by the Deputies’ Room, Senate or the parliamentary commissions. Still, the most complex category is the people .Any citizen of the country who has a minimal age of 18 can vote, of course, if he hasn’t got this right redrawn by the Justice. It means that if he wants to participate in this game, he has all the stipulated rights to do it, but in Romania the fact that people doesn’t come to vote is a major problem. We said that they can choose, but why? They elect representatives or they take part at certain referendums like the one in 18-19 October 2003 when they approved the modification of the Romanian Constitution. In Romania respecting the Constitution and its’ supremacy and the laws is imperative. The Constitution assures the dimensions of the field and the way that all categories can move. Through laws the game’s rules are voted and recorded so that no one can have an excuse the fact that he didn’t know. Until now I hope you understood what represents each category from those three which plays the game. Citizens with the age of at least 23 years, fulfilled until the election’s day inclusive, can be chosen in Deputies Room if they accomplish certain conditions. If they have at least 33 years they can be chosen in Senate and those with the age of 35 years can be chosen as President of Romania. Have you noticed that the leading organs control each other but what’s the most important is that there is a referee and that is represented by justice. The judge authority is independent and obeys to the law, which has to be the same for all. It is divided into three sections: the judge juries, the Public Minister and the Supreme Court of Magistracy. Justice is accomplished by means of High
Court of Cassation and Justice and by other juries established
by the law. In the application of the constitutional providence,
Article 10 from Law 92/1992 regarding the judge organization
identifies all juries: Each jury has a necessary number of judges and they are led by a president who also exercises administrative attributions. When causes of work and labor differences are judged; besides a judge, a juridical assistant who can represent leading associations and another who represents the syndicate can participate. The principle of the juries functions are
as follows: The public minister’s motion usually assigns the agents of the state, also known as “district attorneys” – who, as representatives of society and state are assigned to discover the infringe from the criminal law (penal), to approach the competent juries and sustain in front of them the accusation, for the sanction of the guilty ones. The group of district attorneys organized near a certain jury represents their “prosecuting magistracy”. The Superior Council of Magistracy has the
role to assure through its components and attributions, the
judge’s independence and justice. Unfortunately, in Romania, the system of the “Power separation in the state” is not very well evolved because the President can dissolve the Parliament (and viceversa). Those have an almost equal power but the Government is obedient to the Parliament and controlled by it, and Justice is controlled by the Government which gives Justice the laws and the Parliament which has a great importance in choosing the juries. In Romania some organs are pretty well defined for the assurance of the rights and citizen’s liberties. Beside a juridical system, there also exists the People’s Lawyer, who has as a purpose defending the citizen’s rights and liberties, in their relationships with the public authorities. From the Constitution the Lawyer is chosen with his employees. The function of the democracy in Turkey In Turkey, the elections are applied with the general voting system. In the Constitution of 1961, even though it was considered to have a restricted system for voting depending on the talent which suggested that the voters should have a certain level of education, this system has never been applied. The voting system depending on the difference of sex, in other words depending on the idea that women shouldn’t be voting, was abolished earlier than Europe(1934). The election is considered as the indispensable condition of the democratic administration. Nevertheless, this is not sufficient; because although it provides the democratic administration, the election is incapable to realize the “democracy in the administration”. The system in which the process of taking decisions of the authority is fully open to all observation and participation, where there is the possibility to reach all information and document that the public administration owns and where, the most important of all , beside the fact that those who are concerned or consider themselves as concerned participate to the deciding process as “fully with competence”, the methods which will be followed by this mechanism starting from the first step to the final one, are already determined by the laws, constitutes the basic of the “Law State” . Regarding this definition, we can not give a clear answer to the question: “Is Turkey a law state?”. In the first place, the legality principle, which is the main idea of the “Law State”, must come true and so it must be possible to reach the purpose of “public benefit” while guarding the individual benefits. Taking opinions from different sides makes this system modern, pluralist and democratic, thus the individual non-organized can be a part of the public life and the real order of civilian society could be attained. However, in our country, there is no method previously determined, nor the opportunity to reach the informations. Democracy responding to the desired level can not be realized with the elections which occur once in four or five years. So, we should all notice that the profession foundations, scientific and cultural public associations, syndicates founded freely by the employees and the associations and foundations, which are beneficial to the press and to the public opinion, are also indispensable elements of the democracy. In modern, civilized and democratic societies, all of these; as for our country only the press and a very limited quantity of profession foundations have the function of democratic “pressure groupe”. As in both of the 1961 and 1982 Constitutions, such a system has noot been suggested, only the political parties, as a matter of fact not all but a part of them were accepted and the democratic mass organizations and pressure groupes were enabled, in a limited way, to reunite and proteste, our democracy ,above all, does not have the quality of “pluralism”. The basic and indispensable element of the pluralist democracy is the possibility to have all the political opinions organized and represented in the Chamber of Legislation no matter what the number of their supporters is. In 1961, in Turkey, where the representative democracy is enforced, our constitutional system created the opportunity to the political parties, which had a very low power of votes in the country, to send representatives to the Assembly. On the other hand, in the system of the Constitution of 1982; the votes which were less than 10% of the votes of the whole country were considered as “void”, the parties which had been able to reach a certain rate were counted with “single” points and the parties which had been able to pass this rate were counted with “double” points. But in an election, even though counting some of the votes as one or two might seem as an original democracy, we can not talk about any European type pluralist democracy. The constitution is the document which organizes the basic construction and foundation of a state, the period of the government and the liberties of the individuals in face of the state. The rules included by this document are general and abstract. Because the rules of a constitution are tied up to conditions which are more difficult to change than those of the other laws. There are some drawbacks about constitutions having detailed rules, the subjects ,which could be organised with one law, taking part in the constitution, could bring changes on conditions and on new constitution. This could be easily a reason of a political crisis in the country. According to that, the Constitution of 1982 has concerns about providing the political stability, so it is quite detailed and has an organising quality. In the 18th and 19th centuries, in the constitution movements, the limitation of the government and the protection of individual liberties are taken as basic principals. In our country, these conditions started to be formed after the announcement of the Republique of Turkey(1923). While the Constitution of 1961 was being prepared, the purpose was to limitate and to supervise the authority of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey in order to have the democratic life realized. However, the independant law courts and autonomous associations which were founded to serve to this goal did not work very well and it brought the coup in 12 September 1980. In the Constitution prepared in a detailed way in 1982, modern arrangements about the basic rights and liberties were mentionned; equalty in laws, freedom of thinking and opinion, freedom of science and arts, freedom to found an association, right to defend, right to make a petition etc. What is more, it was limited in order to prevent the basic rights and freedoms from being misused. For example, freedoms of thinking, science and arts do not incite the insult, the provocation of war, the racism and commiting crimes. That is why in the Constitution, there is the following item: “The basic rights and liberties can only be limited by the laws if only it is convenient to the Constitution’s spirit in order to protect the state’s union with its country and nation, the republic, the natural security, the public order and its benefits and public ethics and health.” The independence of the jugdement starts with the Constitution of 1961 in Turkey. Regarding this subject, new arrangements were made in the Constitution of 1982 by taking the constitution of 1948 of the Italian Republic as example and “The High Commitee of Jugdes and Prosecutors” was suggested so that the judgement could self-manage. Most of the members of the judgement think that this commitee, which seems to be independant from the other organs of the state and which creates a system by itself, is not completely impartial. Turkey has made, during the process of the membership to the European Union, some changes so that the jugdement can be independant and impartial and has opened it out to the Union. Thus, the jugdement has gone under control of the European Human Rights Court. Ezgi Yildiz |
